Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

As the Minister said, we debated this issue in general at some length in Committee. I shall speak in support of amendments 23, 74 and 96 to 98. A central concern is the narrow and restrictive definition of ““domestic violence”” that the Minister is putting into the Bill. Once again, we have heard remarks from him that demonstrate his lack of understanding and his lack of sympathy for people in this situation. He said in Committee, and he said again today, that his criteria"““all avoid self-reporting and involve a significant level of state intervention.””" That is indeed the case. The problem is that in taking that approach, he is treating women as if they are not adults capable of self-reporting. That is why many Labour Members feel that he is taking us back 30 years. He said:"““We are concerned that to include admission to a refuge in the criteria would be to rely on self-reporting””." He said that he is"““not persuaded that the medical professionals would be best placed to assess whether domestic violence has occurred””" even though"““they may witness injuries””." He said that he does not believe that, in themselves, allegations of domestic violence are objective. He said, as he said again today, that the tests he wishes to use"““are designed…to minimise the risk of false allegations.””––[Official Report, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2011; c. 359-64.]" That is a problem. If his objective is to minimise the risk of false allegations, then his objective is not to maximise the support that women need. Following the extremely concerning debate that we had in Committee, on 8 September I wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who is responsible for issues relating to women and equalities. On 25 October, I finally received a reply, in which she says:"““You make the point that the definition of domestic violence used in the Bill is much narrower than the ACPO definition. My understanding is that the definition of ““abuse”” in the Bill is a broad one…We have been assured by the Ministry of Justice that the definition used would not exclude, for the purposes of legal aid and private family law cases, any of the types of abuse covered by the definition used by ACPO.””" This letter is quite extraordinary. She goes on to say:"““The Government is clear that objective evidence will be needed to ensure that legal aid in private family cases is focused on those who may be intimidated and unable to assert their rights as a result of domestic violence or the risk of harm by the other party to the proceedings””." Her reliance on the assurances from the Ministry of Justice that its definition is the same as that used by ACPO leads me to ask two questions. First, what is the point of a Minister for Equalities who does not check with the rest of the world what is going on? Secondly, did the Minister tell her that his definition was the same as the ACPO one, when everybody knows that that is not the case? The Minister for Equalities could easily have listened to the Bar Council—not, one would think, a wild group of left-wingers who are determined to promote a feminist picture of the world. One would think that she might have listened to it. It wrote to many Members this week.